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Let Your Computer Watch For Auroras! 57

Posted by timothy from the hey-it's-dark-out dept.
titus-g writes "Well what with this being the 11th year and all, and getting to the right season for those of us in the N hemisphere to enjoy some nice nights outs getting hypothermia, how about building your own automatic aurora detector? Details are available at http://angwin.ece.uiuc.edu/~haunma/ I would link direct to the detector page but the waterfall pics are quite nice (details and links are near the bottom in the projects section)." Well, for those of us who are frightened by waterfalls, here is the Aurora Monitor Project, "[a]n automatic notification system designed to help you observe the northern or southern lights."
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Let Your Computer Watch For Auroras! More

Let Your Computer Watch For Auroras!

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  • Well it's kinda a real time/in situ thing, so it's not going to be much use unless you actually live fairly close to the detectors...

    I'd check out the forecast linked to so many times already in this thread.

    Even so in texas you are probably out of luck.

    How about a boycott the MPAA RIAA etc tech worker strike for October so we can all head Due North.

  • For all those aurora watchers out there, you may wish to look tonight. Both of my favorit sources are saying it's a go for likely observations tonight. I like to see a Pmap [noaa.gov] index of 8 or higher with the red zone covering some or all of Minnesota. A 7 should technically do it for my area, but I've never seen anything durring a 7. The Ace [noaa.gov] (MAG_SWEPAM [noaa.gov]) red line needs to be in the negatives, the more so the better. I also like to see the solar wind speed (yellow) high, but it isn't tonight. I'll be rechecking conditions about 9:30pm (Central/US) to see if a run out of town to observe is a good idea.

  • I don't have to explain the reference to you do I?

    Highlander? "There can be only one.." Swordplay for the other immortal's quickening...HELLO!?!

    And being 'confronted' by two beautiful women is number 3 on my life's fantasy list!;-)

  • Sounds like you were running M$.
  • Two of you even, that must be 50% of the population at least...

    But hey it's explicable, long nights and all that...

    Why do you think the Finns thought up IRC.

  • My PCS phone can get e-mails, I should sign it up to the mailing list. They say it's a low traffic list, so that shouldn't be a problem. Also, my phone truncates at 100 char's, but the sample message truncated is

    The aurora monitor in east-central Illinois has declared a level 1 alarm, on a scale of 1 to 3, with 3 being the highest lev

    so that shouldn't be too much a problem. Should be pretty cool. We'll see.
    --
  • You had to be in the noth of Scotland last night. An absolutley brilliant display. Two huge arcs right across the sky with radiating green filliaments extending from the upper arc. To make it even better there were meteors bordering on fireballs streaking across it. And where was my camera - at home, where else?
  • What are you talking about? How do you construe this article to be about competition? Amateurs (such as this guy with the detector) make uncounted contributions to the field. This *IS* cooperation. You don't really believe that pro astronomers are wasting all that 'scope and computer time trying to predict auroras or looking for new comets, do you? That falls mostly to the little guy.

    And BTW, why do you think they threw "enormous amounts of money" at the space race, if they weren't in competition???

    Geez...

    RiffRaff (amateur astronomer who thinks this is a GREAT idea and should bear much more fruit than SETI)

  • Nothing I said can be construed as implying that I did not get the aforementioned highlander reference.
  • I dropped a monitor out of a Corolla at 50 mph once... probably would've been okay if that truck hadn't nailed it on the bounce.
  • Endgame was one of the biggest pieces of shit in latest memory. "They all were killed! Oh, wait, the series must go on. Aha, we found another who hadn't been killed, except we won't even allude to the fact that he should've been killed." Please, don't insult us, Gillian.
  • I'm not usually one to suspect conspiracies, but I find it odd that the pictures of the Aurora on that page are missing. Hmmmmm, indeed......
  • Two Ninja Bitches... Trying to kill each other.

  • Conditions are still good today. I just wish these clouds overhead would go away. A large number of people around the globe have seen this latest display [spacew.com].

  • Nothing I said can be construed as implying that I did not get the aforementioned highlander reference.

    Perhaps nothing you said should be construed as implying... etc. but it OBVIOUSLY DOES imply it to at least some of the readership. You ought to be more verbose if you're so concerned about being misunderstood.


    -The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
  • The University of York has set up a UK Aurorawatch [york.ac.uk] site, complete with an Aurora Alert by email or SMS.

  • That's very amusing, I'm assuming that you don't very often use swords. All Highlander tomfoolery and ludicrousness aside, every single woman I'm currently friends with I've become friends with through the teaching of Iaido and the study of the metallurgical properties of your "typical" shinsakuto ;).

    I do not think just because one holds an interest in swords is enough to label them as juvenile. Even those differentially heat treated Shadow-S 1086 steel forge folded Highlander replica swords with the kevlar enhanced tsukas are pretty and functional, so you can't readily say that Highlander fans are just interested in your everyday junkmetal 100$ Taiwan blades.

    Swords are fun, women are fun too, they make better students than men (Wow, three generalisations in just one rant, how disturbing).

    The other obvious activity with which your typical man would partake with two beautiful woman is actually I think far more worthy of being labelled typical than "playing with swords" ;).

    Actually, perhaps not for your typical male *geek*... (God I hate that word..)

  • Wow. This is a really cool idea, but what sort of information is given through the mailing system? I'd rather not get an email every few weeks and rush out to see the display only to find out it was very weak. It would be cool if the mailings gave intensity and an estimated viewing region (say, latitudes and such). I live in Texas, so it's gonna have to be one hell of a display for me to see anything.

  • Re:aurora-underground.org? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks has a daily aurora (borealis) forecast at: http://www.gi.alaska.edu/cgi-bin/predict.cgi We had a beautiful aurora over Fairbanks last night about 10-11 PM Alaska time.
  • Bah! Living in Fairbanks, Alaska we get to see the aurora quite often (right now we have less then 11 hours of daylight and are losing about 7 minutes per day). There's been times I've seen it driving home from work. Of course, they look the best when it is about -40 or so and the light drowns out the stars... way cool ;-) For a forcast, see the UAF Geophysical Institute's Aurora Forcast [alaska.edu] page.
  • Why yes, there is a plane called "Aurora".

    Aurora info [freeservers.com]
  • A good place to start is http://www.pfrr.alaska.edu/~pfrr/AURORA/INDEX.HTM [alaska.edu] -> The aurora forecast (in left frame nav) -> Custom Maps (near bottom of page).

    If you aren't far enough north to see them then I'd recommend a few weeks off sick and a holiday in Alaska, they don't get this good that often, and well, once you've watched one you are never going to forget it. Don't mean to be blasphemous, but well, it's almost better than beer...

    (ok for one moment I will try not to be flippant) It will touch your soul, you will always remember it.

    How many 11 years do you live anyway?

  • The last time I saw an aurora it was preceeded by blue acrid smoke coming out of the back of my monitor.

    I think you mean corona.

  • My god, other slashdotters in Fairbanks? I'm shocked!
  • Thanks, here [alaska.edu] is a clickable version of that link. Its good to see there are a few /. readers who care about something more than their karma.
  • And all this time I was wondering who Aurora was...
  • There can be only one.

    So are you two going to start a sword fight now? ;-)

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • wow, i was in class with this kid when he made the detector last year as his "open lab" project. i remember him explaining the details to me during open house at the end of the semester; he'd spent shitloads of time on it. then i got to explain to him how i'd pretty much done nothing all semester and still got a C in the class :> weird when someone ya know shows up on /.
  • umm no no no, corona is a soft drinks company, or well it used to be anyway, 5p a bottle to return them.

    What he is talking about is an OhMyGodI'mGoingToHaveToSellTheFerrariToPayToHaveTh atFixed, an entirely different beastie altogether.

    Interestingly enough Timothy missed out my PS on the article, to whit (PS: Part of it runs on Linux :P) although he did change the title from the original 'Aurora Monitor Project' and save me from looking like an utter dweeb, so I'm grateful)

  • You don't really believe that pro astronomers are wasting all that 'scope and computer time trying to predict auroras or looking for new comets, do you?
    Well, your main point is right, amateurs do make contributions to science. And astronomers don't predict aurora. But space physicists do. We don't use telescopes (except maybe for some related solar observations), but we use plenty of computer time, spacecraft, and ground based observations. Of course predicting aurora isn't the only point of space physics, but it is one of the "prettier" parts of it.

    --
  • Yeah, he probably poured the Corona into the back of his monitor. That's why he saw the aurora. Or corona. Whatever.

    ---------///----------
    All generalizations are false.

  • Hey, same age I was when I first saw one of them all those 11 years ago (on the way home from a friends funeral, talk about signs...), oh well, by the time you're my age you should probably have enough cash to buy Alaska if you go into IT.

    n/p 's what I'm here for.

  • What this site needs to become is sort of like a Weather Underground for auroras.

    Well, there already are other similar services. The Alaska page already mentioned is a good one. Spaceweather.com [spaceweather.com] is a fairly good site as well. And there are also sites for reporting your own aurora observations. The Auroral Activity Page [spacew.com] is for world wide aurora observations, while this page [umn.edu] at the University of Minnesota is for the midwest of the U.S. and Canada.

    --

  • Swords? You're confronted with two beautiful women, and all you can think of is to play with swords? How juvenile is this place?
  • I've seen them, when I lived in Michigan. Auroras, IIRC are mostly centered around the earth's magnetic poles(north only?). Electrons entering the atmosphere encounter radation from the sun (best during times of sun spot activity, and apparently there's a big spot ATM). Looks like glowing curtains, which may move gracefully or shift suddenly with brilliant light emission.

    Last one I witnessed was so bright, around Bay City, that it nearly blinded me while driving home from a late hacking session.


    --
    Chief Frog Inspector
  • Soon after reading this article my housemates told me to have a look outside. Sure enough there were 'The Northern Lights', the first time that I'd ever seen them. It was an amazing sight. BTW, I'm in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada
  • Swords? You're confronted with two beautiful women, and all you can think of is to play with swords? How juvenile is this place?

    Hmm. I must've missed the IMAGE links in those posts, because I have been given absolutely no data that would cause me to infer that either of the "geek" women who posted here were "beautiful." In fact, it could be argued that most if not all of the women who fit the description of "Geek Girl" are anything BUT beautiful...

    on the other hand, the fact that they didn't understand the highlander reference might help to disqualify them from "geek" status.


    -The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
  • Nice to know he's an equal-opportunity peeping Tom, looking for guys' coronas as well...

    Vovida, OS VoIP
    Beer recipe: free! #Source
    Cold pints: $2 #Product

  • Using your computer to get laid takes a lot fewer CPU cycles. All you need is a text editor, a mail client, and a TCP/IP stack...

    Vovida, OS VoIP
    Beer recipe: free! #Source
    Cold pints: $2 #Product

  • Using your computer to get laid takes a lot fewer CPU cycles. All you need is a text editor, a mail client, and a TCP/IP stack...

    of course, this mode of searching requires much more user interaction. :P

    Starting my morning the right way,

    Vovida, OS VoIP
    Beer recipe: free! #Source
    Cold pints: $2 #Product

  • Indeed. #2 on my list to be confronted by *three* beautiful women.
  • The last time I saw an aurora it was preceeded by blue acrid smoke coming out of the back of my monitor. Then there was this loud flash. Not sure if I can handle to much more Aurora monitoring.
  • Good Idea! looks like I've started a little early though :)
  • We already know it's in Illinois.

  • Typical male geeks (Score:5)

    by Anne Marie ( 239347 ) on Wednesday October 04, 2000 @03:07PM (#730968)
    Instead of getting laid in the real world, you're using your computers to look at areolas.
    (from a female geek)
  • I don't know if it is just (male) geeks who are using computers to find pr0n, i think it has probably made the jump into the (male) population at large.

  • Areola Watch (Score:3)

    by linuxonceleron ( 87032 ) on Wednesday October 04, 2000 @03:09PM (#730970) Homepage
    This program sounds like a great idea! I've been searching for pictures containing women's areolas quite often, but this program will let my computer find them on its own. My days of surfing thehun.net, asianthumbs.org and all are over! Slashdot, thank you for the incredibly interesting article on software that can distinguish nipples from regular skin, thereby getting rid of gigabytes of unnecessary pictures of women who are covering these areas. This is a major paradigm shift in the field of AI design. I have tested this program, and it works wonders, it seems to make my pants feel tight for some odd reason though...
  • This is obviously offtopic, but wasn't there a secret supersonic plane being developed by the US airforce called the Aurora?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • I'm happy to live far up north in Sweden to be able to see northern lights quite often. It is one of natures most beautiful phenomenon, and I feel sorry for those who miss it out; I really hope that you all can experience a real aurora some day.

    Northern lights wander
    Dance across the winter sky
    Full colour fire

  • What this site needs to become is sort of like a Weather Underground [wunderground.com] for auroras. It certainly would be nice to know a forecast for stuff like this as it is hard to encounter unless you spend your days staring at the sky (as this guy's computer can).

    Keep up the good work, its neat to see genuinely useful sites like this.

  • Female geek?
    There can be only one.
  • Oiii I'm married!

    why do you think I spend all night outside watching stars and auroras...

    And the days coding and at the pub.

    Anything to get away from that unceasing interminable soul destroying energy sucking [positivehealth.com] sex...

    It's you wimmin that are obsessed with it so it is...

  • Auroral Detector (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Nice site, and Washington is situated well to view that aurora when the auroral oval expands southward from its usual position over Alaska and Norther Canada. The University of Alaska maintains continuous auroral monitoring from its Poker Flat Research Range north of Fairbanks. Their web site at http://www.pfrr.alaska.edu/aurora/INDEX.HTM provides an especially complete list of auroral resources, including mpeg images, for those who are interested in seeing what kind of information is available from a professional auaoral research organization.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Aha! from the website:

    Acknowledgements
    I wish to thank the following companies whose generous donations of the optical components made this project possible on my limited student budget:

    Hamamatsu Corporation: Photodiodes, photomultiplier tubes (PMTs), and integrated-socket high voltage supplies.
    Andover Corporation: Narrow-band optical filter.
    Omega Optical, Inc.: Narrow-band optical filter.
    So this article is just another plug from that multiheaded corporate behemoth that is Andover.net!! And Slashdot is only another mere piece of the borg! :P

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